Vendorful: Smarter sourcing for buyers and vendors

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Most businesses understand the challenges of finding a reliable supplier. Sure, there are “throwaway engagements” where your focus is purely transactional, the sole focus might be quickly identifying who can get the job time. But for larger, more strategic endeavors, the scope of your evaluation likely transcends the supplier’s current capabilities. Indeed, your looking to find a partner with whom you can build a long-term, mutually beneficial working relationship.

One of the more common tasks of companies undertaking a new sourcing project is issuing RFPs. Sometimes, the RFP drafting process is viewed as a relatively minor part of the entire project rather than being treated with the same degree of care as other aspects like scoring/evaluating. A thoughtful, well-considered RFP is a key stepping stone on the path to adding to or updating your vendor portfolio. Giving it short shrift, on the other hand, could have the opposite effect and negatively impact the company’s growth, profitability, and efficiency.

Procurement teams face a number of challenges as companies take an increasingly critical look at their processes in the hopes of producing more value. It might not surprise anyone that the value-driving RFP process is still regularly met with resistance from departments outside of procurement. Even procurement teams have been known to push back, describing the process as too time-consuming and antiquated. Sourcing professionals know that RFPs are critical components of a well-run procurement practice, but pressure — both external and internal — can result in teams’ skirting or completely abandoning the process altogether. The risks are significant as the organization is far more likely to be dealing with the consequences of an ensemble of mismatched services and low-value purchases as a result. Here are the 4 of the biggest challenges facing your RFP process today.

It’s easy to get lost in a sourcing event. In addition to making sure you nail each step of the RFP process itself, you’re also trying to wrangle data, vendors, and internal teams across a variety of communication and management platforms — none of which seem to speak to each other. There is an understandable temptation, and sometimes even pressure, to cut corners for expediency's sake, but you’re fully aware that cutting corners will lead to a less-than-ideal outcome. While for some organizations, the RFP has devolved into a box to be checked, top sourcing professionals understand the value of running a high-integrity, rigorous process. Below, we’ve put together a list of tips to keep your team on track, and maybe even show you some steps you didn’t know were missing.

Procurement doesn’t work in a tidy bubble; everything the team does is both influenced and catalyzed by the needs of other departments. Any improvement to the procurement team has a positive impact across every department that spends money. And if you have any departments that aren’t spending money… well… give us a call, we’d love to learn how they do it.

The Amazon HQ2 RFP has gathered quite a bit of buzz due to cities competing to become the new home for the tech giant. This will be the biggest individual sourcing project that the company will likely ever undertake, by a wide margin. The money involved is huge, the commitment massive, and the time scale extremely long... this project will span an entire career for some members of the Amazon sourcing team.

Supplier relationship management is tricky, and many organizations are unknowingly mismanaging their supplier relationships. From tunnel vision to a dangerous vendor “lock-in,” a mismanaged supplier relationship almost always impacts your bottom line… even if — and probably especially if — you can’t see the problem.